Hiding From The Light (A Tributes Story)
by SwiftDeWolf
Summary: What if the rebellion failed? The hunger games came back and everything went back to normal, but now law is harsher the games are tougher more gruesome, horrifying, stomach churning. But that's just for the poor citizens forced for the tributes is much, much worse. Can Damien Lupa survive the games against the odds, or will he fall along with twenty two others, lets find out...
1. Chapter 1

Chapter one: First steps

I stand there, a cold feeling inside of me as I see a figure with a mace in its hand standing across the way from me. By its stance I can tell it wants to kill me. I have only one dagger in my hand which is covered in dry blood, and along with my tattered clothes and multiple cuts I can tell I am in the Hunger Games; the feeling of pure fear doesn't lie. The figure runs at me very quickly, hair whipping behind it as it runs. The figure seems to be very feminine, then I realize it's a girl who's attacking me. The figure swings the mace quickly at my side with brutal force. I only just have the time to leap back to avoid major damage. I look down gingerly hoping not to see a wound; I am right though. I see wounds. Three very light cuts now stand out on my stomach, each one having a small trail of blood trickling down it until it softly hits the floor, staining it red. I growl lightly as I glare at the female figure and yell as I stab my dagger quickly down at her arm, but she leaps back, the dagger barely cutting into her shoulder. I leap back quickly as the mace comes at me again. This time I manage to avoid it completely as all the figure can do is pull its arm back. I take a breath quickly and realise I am in a clearing between a forest and a lake. The floor is stone, with small cracks where grass pops up here and there. It's so dark it's hard to see exactly what's going on or what the area is like. The only reason I know about the floor is because I hear the figure's shoes tap against it as they charge at me, and I felt the grass against my feet as I stepped backwards, it brushing my ankle before I nearly fell into a crack in the floor. As the figure takes a step back I don't know whether to take a chance and attack, but something makes me stand still, like my body won't let me go forwards, like I have feelings for what is standing in front of me, like I know I care for it; like I can't live without it. The figure moves its arm back, mace in hand, then runs forwards and throws it at my head. I hear it come towards me and see it, a spike aimed between my eyes. I try to move but I all I can do is scream until the mace hits and my world turns black…

I wake up with a jolt, my entire body doused with cold sweat, but I'm burning up. I look across from my bed and see my little sister curled up in her bed across the room from me. We both live in a worker's accommodation building, mainly used for kids or adults who work the most in the orchards. People who live here are usually called in to do overnight stuff when they have a 'low in crops', or as I better know it they have found out who hasn't been collecting enough. I sigh as I pick myself up out of bed and walk into my sister's room, lightly shaking her awake. She's only eight so she is nowhere near reaping age, but she still has to attend because I'm her only family left after our parents died.

"Wake up sis," I say, lightly shaking her again as she groans and turns over. "It's your favourite day of the year." I joke as she laughs then sits up, her hair sticking out at all ends, like mine when I wake up. Me and my sister have many things in common: we have dark brown hair, extremely pale skin, we have both grown to an abnormal height for our age and we both have the same abnormal speed that no one else seems to have. The one thing we don't have in common is our eyes; I have steely cold blue eyes that just seem to say 'I've survived hell, now I will make your life worse than hell itself', whereas she has deep kind of green eyes that just seem to make everyone around her seem to open up and smile. She never seems to have a frown on her face. There again is another difference. While she is just a smiley happy person, I am a rebel. I always find a way to attract attention no matter what, but I always find myself taking a beating for someone else.

"It's not Christmas yet, is it Dami?" my sister jokes as she gets out of bed.

"No, it's reaping day." I say bitterly then laugh as I walk down the stairs. This is the usual way I have fun, confusing everyone but myself.

Once I get downstairs I pull out what we have left of the bread. We take the last of the jam we had and spread it onto the bread as I turn our TV on to see what 'all of Panem should be looking forward to'. This year is the 106th Annual Hunger Games and everyone is excited to see what will happen. After all, only girls from eleven have won for a long time and being a boy and picked is basically jinxed, no one really makes it to day three anymore. The career districts have lost their edge a bit but not too much, the last quell was taken by a boy from ten, Horus West I believe his name was. All that the TV shows is Carlos Flickerman talking to the current head gamemaker Axel Rush. He was the one who made the arena for the hundredth games, it was the most gruesome games yet and since then he hasn't missed a beat. Every games I have to send my sister out of the room before the games begin because of the gore that happens within the first two minutes. The Capitol even considered raising the tribute numbers because he went through so many on day one that almost no one made it past day six. Before he came along, the games usually lasted ten days until a victor was crowned. The most recent one being a boy from three who shocked the country by killing the final tribute by trapping him in a cylinder of fire which burnt him into a burning pile of ash. It went on for four hours, the wild crazy screams along with the horrible gut wrenching laughter of a sick minded killer.

I ignore the TV as my sister comes down the stairs, wearing her little green dress that I bought from a Capitol trader that came to the district. My sister made a few adjustments to make it look like a nice calm flowing dress, not at all what it was made to be. We eat in silence as a sort of tradition so we don't have to share the nervous talk we have shared for the past two years of 'What if I get picked? What if I end up dead? What if I go so insane from the games after I win, if I could, I can't remember who she is?' All these things pop up on this day. Each time they do I always end up the same, saying everything is ok.

I quickly run upstairs and get dressed for the reaping; I am wearing a short sleeved blue button up shirt, black jeans which are ripped at the knee from working in them all the time and my working boots. This is what almost every boy in the district shall wear today, just instead of blue it will be green or brown, a colour we were assigned after the districts were crushed again and District Twelve had to be rebuilt, but after that for a few games the losing streak they had broken. A girl named Primrose something managed to win at age eighteen followed by two other victors before the streak was back, but the district still managed to get close every year, closer than any male from District Eleven that is. I quickly walk to the door, opening it into the small village of people who live near the orchards. We are a tight knit community but we are the lowest of the low - we aren't even good enough to stay in the actual district, we just stay out here until reaping day, then they will at random pull out a few people from the reaping to carry on the work. I can only beg I'm one of them. I drop my sister off at a friend's house who will take her to the reaping for me so I don't have to worry about what could happen to her whilst I'm there, which is good, because today after the reaping she may not be feeling too happy.

Once I arrive at the reaping, the place is packed as usual with people walking to and from the square, along with the many lucky families who have had their kids name taken out of the bowl for this year. How I loathe them so. Once I get to the front of the line I can only beg I will see an amber light on that stupid needle so I can turn around and just go to work, forget about this day for a year, that's what I want. I hold out my hand as the needle gently enters my ring finger, then out again, a droplet of blood just sneaking out before it is slammed down quickly onto the piece of paper. Then she uses the scanner on the needle, all I can hope for whilst its reading is an amber light, please just one is all I want, nothing more, please, just this once. The green light flashes on the needle and I nearly allow a tear to escape my eyes. I am still counted in the reaping, the one year my name is in there most, mainly for taking out food and oil for my friends families to boot. My name is in there so many times, if I'm not picked I may as well volunteer. The word seems foreign to me, it's like a word we refuse to speak, because if we do something terrible will happen if spoken upon this day. This is very accurate because if you say it at just the right time something terrible will happen. You'll be a tribute.

I slowly make my way into the section filled to the brim with boys my age, fourteen years old. I stand between my friends as we all exchange a nervous and friendly smile in hopes that won't be the last we share together, that we will always be able to share these moments. How untrue after today that will be. "Good luck." I say because even if one of them got picked today, the odds are in their favour I'm volunteering. None of us dare look up whilst the beginning goes on, all about how we failed to rebel twice and how if the districts ever rebelled again the Capitol may not be so merciful a third time. I curse under my breath as it goes on. It's basically feeding us Capitol bread, lies on how they've made life better. Say that to the mutts in the orchard that attack me daily. Once the speech of lies is over the girls reaping begins and I look nervously around at the faces of my friends and people I don't know. I can see all of my friends sticking out like sore thumbs like me and my sister do, but none of them seem worried and most of them aren't here. "Luna Grove." the crazy woman yells. I suddenly feel an urge to look at her then instantly regret it. She's wearing high heeled pink boots and a bikini shaped like apples with a green see through jacket and she has bright green hair. I suddenly wish I kept my head down; I can't help but break down laughing as I draw loads of attention to myself. Being the rebel of the district doesn't help. Once I'm done with my laughing fit the reaping goes on normally. She plunges her hand into the bowl of tributes and I beg for my name to be there just so I can act scared, as all the cameras think it was one of my friends not me. She slowly unravels the paper and I stand on edge as she opens her mouth. She takes a breath and her lips form the syllables. "Dallas Robern!" she yells in an loud perky voice.

I step forwards away from the crowds, my friends try to pull me back but I won't let them. For once I'm doing something for someone else. I'm saving their life. I stick my hand up high in the air and before I can control myself the words "I volunteer!" are past my mouth and the crowd is silent.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two: Too Many Goodbyes

Everyone in the crowd is staring at me, I don't how my hand was in the air, and I don't know how I spoke those words. But I did and now I'll pay the price. I can hear my sister yelling from the crow,; I'll explain to her how to survive later so when I die she knows what to do. I calmly walk up to the stage my hands in my jeans, and instead of taking the stairs onto the metre high stage I take a small run up and leap onto it. This is only a taster of what I am capable of. I am the first idiot to volunteer since the games and I will hear that the moment I get to the capitol, then for the rest of what probably will be a very short life.

"What's your name?" The escort asks me kindly but I can tell all she wants to do is scream her success story in the faces of the other escorts. I sigh before replying as I go to open my mouth the escort butts in. "Wait. You were the boy who was laughing weren't you?" I sigh again.

"First of all sweetheart I have a name, Damien Lupa. Secondly I am no boy. I am fourteen and quite frankly I am a tributes worst nightmare" I turn to face a camera and look directly into it. "So watch yourself or I may be making your cannon fire first." I evilly grin before I want to clamp my hand over my mouth. I said those words but I don't know where they came from I just felt like I needed to say them.

"Well looks like we have a very interesting tribute this year" The escort says as she tries to calm the crowd who are muttering among themselves. The escort slowly gestures for us to shake hands; neither of us is crazy for the idea until I move my hand out. She firmly grabs it and we exchange smiles but all that's running through my mind is in under a week we will be out to kill each other. The moment we let go of each other's hand we are pushed apart be peace keepers and whisked into the justice building so say our goodbyes, all I can think of is how this will be my final goodbye to everything everyone. This is what I leave behind of my old life no matter what. I am literally thrown into a very nice room with a green velvet sofa with a cream wall where a few past tributes have engraved their name on the wall. Two names I seem to know are Seeder and Chaft two past victors from a while ago before the rebellion, I guess it is true the justice building is the only place that was left untouched from the rebellion. I slowly look around the room in search of how they managed it, it seems impossible until I look on the sofa and see on the leg a small worn down razor poking out. I pull it out then walk over to the wall and slowly carve my name into the wall but the door is burst open before I am finished so I left it saying 'Damien S|' but I highly doubt any following tribute will care after a while. I turn around expecting my friends, but instead I see my little sister run at me full pelt and before I know it has jumped at me clutching onto my torso.

"Hey kid" I say stroking her hair once as she cries, "I'm sorry I did this to ya'." I can hardly stand the thought of leaving her but I have to it's too late to change my mind.

"Hey Dam'" my friend Freddy says walking gingerly through the doorway followed by Lewis, my other friend, but let's just say when I'm not around they're best friends. Freddy is taller than Lewis, but still dramatically shorter than me. He's taller than most people with has pale skin and brown hair like mine but with hazel eyes. Lewis is almost the opposite he has dark skin and jet-black hair, along green eyes. God knows where he got those from but he is average height but he's a stocky build and I don't really see him in the three. I guess he's more of a ground working type of guy. But who would blame him; the tree is a rough place.

"Hey Fred Lewis" I manage tears trying to well up in my eyes but me not allowing them to pass my eyes. "Rosie? Can you go down there a second; I need to talk to my friends." My sister just manages to nod before she hops down and goes and sits quietly down on the sofa. I turn to my friends a serious look on my face. "Look you two, I'm most likely to die in the arena and you have to make sure she doesn't get picked or die of starvation because believe me." I take a moment to pause to try and calm myself down "because believe me if you don't I will haunt you every day of every week slowly turning you insane with the sound of your own screams and when you finally die I'll make you wish you were still alive." Freddy only smiles and pulls me into a hug.

"We'll take her in as our own if we must." I whispers into my ear and looks at Lewis "I swear." I smile kindly at my friends and give them both another hug and walk them to the door.

"I guess this is goodbye," I say sadly looking at them both my friends since childhood we have always been together shared the load always made sure the other didn't need to put their name in more time unless they needed it even then it'd be me who put my name in. I guess that's what I will miss people who understand me. People who get what it's like here, all the perks all the horrors. People who understand that no matter how mean I seem to be underneath it all I am human and I still feel the pain.

"Yeah," Lewis says he seems to be on the verge of tears, I cannot afford this luxury to show I am scared not now, now I must be cold because I must kill.

"Yeah I guess it is." Freddy slowly grabs the door handle and opens the door, the last door I'll ever see open with all of us around. I almost shed a tear as they both step through the doorway.

"Goodbye" I manage.

"See ya' soon mate" Freddy says smiling as a peacekeeper grabs the handle and closes the door. I force myself to turn to face my little sister sitting on the sofa; she has been crying the entire time. I've been here and probably since my hand went up, this is why I feel so guilty about being here doing this putting her through more loss then she already has. This is what will leave her alone to grow up in the world an alone broken little girl. "Rosie" I try to begin as I sit down but she just jumps across the sofa and latches onto me.

"Why Dami'? Why did you have to do it, why do you have to leave me like mummy and daddy did?" The tears in her eyes make this all the harder to do along with the fact I have broken her, her spirit, destroyed all she could manage to hold dear. I have truly broken her. I don't need training for the arena, I am already a monster. "I don't want to lose you Dami'," She goes back to crying into my shirt before she looks up into my eyes again. "But can't you win Dami' you're fast and you can jump from the trees really well and you can beat up all the bullies in school."

"Rosie I-"

"Just promise me you'll try Dami', promise you'll try so if you don't come back at least I can be proud of my big brother?" I cave she is too cute with those puppy dog eyes, I can't handle the cuteness.

"Fine," I say bitterly, "but on one condition, if Lewis or Freddy say look away you do if I'm about to kill someone you look away. Because I can't promise you'll see me the same once I have killed someone. But if I die don't watch I don't want you to see me I want you to think of my quietly sitting in one of the orchard trees dosing off ok?" I am using my entire mite not to cry right now. She nods and hugs me again as I have to say one more thing to her. "And think of this as our goodbye" I say "because this is the last time I will really be me because after today I can't be Damien the good big brother you know and love. I have to be Damien the tribute and you won't like him very much." She nods again and hugs me again. We sit in silence for a long time just hugging together for what is probably the last time. Suddenly the door bursts open and a burly peacekeeper walk in,

"Times up" he says, tears in his eyes. Guess these doors aren't soundproof.

"Bye" I manage to say to my sister as she slowly makes her way out. I sit silently for a while thinking to myself about today's events and what will happen now. 'What will happen now' I think to myself, 'will I just die straight way, like so many other tributes will or can I actually do it can I win against the odds and twenty three other tributes. I guess I'll find out.' I hear the door open again and I see the escort standing with Luna by her side.

"Let's get going shall we?" she with her perky voice, honestly I'd like to ram a spear through her voice box but I think I'll keep that to myself. We walk through the winding hallways of the justice building until we end up at the back of the building with a car waiting for us I guess this way we don't get any pesky reporters until we get to the train station. I guess the only time it is only used until the day of the reaping is to export goods to the capitol and the other districts and I should know I have seen in happen a lot when I have to run to check all the stock got there ok but it's really to throw an extra few apples here and there to save a few people's heads. We all get into the car me sitting next to Luna but we don't speak, I've never really seen her around the district before but I now her families back story, her family were evacuated here from district twelve in the rebellion, but now they stayed here but that didn't bother them despite the fact it's stricter here there's a bit more food here. Luna is around my height but is sixteen she has long blonde hair, which she keeps in a ponytail down her back forest green eyes and pale skin; she has a thin build alike mine if she had brown hair we could pass for brother and sister. Despite that we refuse to make any contact with one another I guess we'll warm up to each other after a while I mean we have a week to get to know one another until I have to kill her so may as well get to know my murderer/victim/ally/district partner. I take a moment got look around the car, it's nothing special a few leather seats a small section for food and drinks, a small glass panel to separate the driver and the passengers along with many windows. I'm sure they're only one sided, I don't think the capitol would want the poor slobs of the districts looking in on their refined classy lifestyle. But really then again aren't we the people who make it for them. Once we arrive at the train station I begin to panic as I see the lines of photographers, I hate being noticed forget having millions of pictures of me taken. I turn around and I think my escort can see the worry in my eyes and she gently places a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry hun," she says kindly which I thought was an emotion that was unknown to capitol citizens. "It's just a few flashing lights and picture for the capitol. Just fake a smile or look like you ready to kill or that you don't care. They'll eat it right up." The driver then steps out from where he was sitting and opens the door on the side of the car closer to the train, which is the opposite side to where I sit now. Luna gets out first followed by our escort whose name I am yet to have learned and then it's my turn. My escort grabs my arm to make sure I don't make a run for it and the peacekeepers scattered in the crowd are also making sure I don't. The cameras start flashing the moment I turn around; they're practically blinding me as I walk. I shoot one camera a death glare and he seems to stop out of shock, I smirk; maybe this will make them stop. As we walk I shoot more glares at the cameras then just before we get onto the train I make a smirk as my escort nudges me.

"Good job," she whispers into my ear. "You'll be fine" We turn around and stand in the doorway for a moment and all the flashing of the cameras starts again I keep my smirk on my face and close my eyes for a moment so block out the flashing. When I open them again, the doors have begun to close thank god. Once they're closed all the way I fall to my knees, if only the hard part was over.

((AN: Thanks for the followers and favourites I got from last chapter I give you all cookies! Well tell me what you thought about this chapter and follow favourite and all that good stuff :D))


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